ArticleScientific reports2023
Targeted dream incubation at sleep onset increases post-sleep creative performance.
Article in Scientific reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed.
- Dream content and slow waves benefit prey against predator in a video game confrontation.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Targeted dream incubation at sleep onset can influence later dream content in REM sleep: a pilot study.Frontiers in sleep · 2026Article
- Creative problem-solving after experimentally provoking dreams of unsolved puzzles during REM sleep.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Festschrift in honor of Dr. Robert Stickgold, pioneer in sleep, memory, and dream research.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2026Article
- Investigating dreams by strategically presenting sounds during REM sleep to reactivate waking experiences.Neuropsychologia · 2025Article
- Systems memory consolidation during sleep: oscillations, neuromodulators, and synaptic remodeling.BMB reports · 2025Review
- Short naps improve subsequent learning in a high school setting.NPJ science of learning · 2025Article
- Prodromal dreams.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2025Article
- Unlocking Dreams and Dreamless Sleep: Machine Learning Classification With Optimal EEG Channels.BioMed research international · 2025Article
- From high- to low-density EEG for automatic classification of dream experiences during stage 2 of NREM.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2025Article
- New strategies for the cognitive science of dreaming.Trends in cognitive sciences · 2024Review
- A case for using methods from natural science in advancing the field of cognitive neuroscience.Theory & psychology · 2024Article
- Recurring memory reactivation: The offline component of learning.Neuropsychologia · 2024Article
- Targeted dream incubation at a distance: the development of a remote and sensor-free tool for incubating hypnagogic dreams and mind-wandering.Frontiers in sleep · 2024Article
- Comparison of autonomic reactivity to trauma and nightmare imagery: A Pilot Study.Sleep advances : a journal of the Sleep Research Society · 2024Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The link between dreams and creativity has been a topic of intense speculation. Recent scientific findings suggest that sleep onset (known as N1) may be an ideal brain state for creative ideation. However, the specific link between N1 dream content and creativity has remained unclear. To investigate the contribution of N1 dream content to creative performance, we administered targeted dream incubation (a protocol that presents auditory cues at sleep onset to introduce specific themes into dreams) and collected dream reports to measure incorporation of the selected theme into dream content. We then assessed creative performance using a set of three theme-related creativity tasks. Our findings show enhanced creative performance and greater semantic distance in task responses following a period of N1 sleep as compared to wake, corroborating recent work identifying N1 as a creative sweet spot and offering novel evidence for N1 enabling a cognitive state with greater associative divergence. We further demonstrate that successful N1 dream incubation enhances creative performance more than N1 sleep alone. To our knowledge, this is the first controlled experiment investigating a direct role of incubating dream content in the enhancement of creative performance.
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